Expunging or Sealing a Federal Criminal Record: How Massachusetts Courts Can Help and What Can Be Done

Massachusetts law offers real remedies for a criminal record of a Massachusetts criminal case. Sealing under M.G.L. c. 276, §§ 100A and 100C, and expungement under §§ 100E to 100U are robust solutions for eligible defendants to move on with their educations and careers after ending their criminal cases. A common question is whether sealing or expunging a Massachusetts case also clears the copy the FBI keeps in its national database. It does not, at least not automatically. The federal record returned by a fingerprint background check will still show a sealed or expunged Massachusetts case unless you follow the steps described below. A simpler question is whether a Massachusetts court can seal or expunge a record from a federal case: a federal arrest, a federal charge, or a federal conviction. It cannot.

A federal criminal record carries particular weight for anyone who holds a professional license. Most Massachusetts boards require disclosure of a criminal case, so the record and any relief from it bear directly on licensure. This page works closely with our guidance on criminal defense for licensed professionals and on professional license disclosure and discipline rules.

This page answers both questions in detail below, beginning with the one that affects the most people. A Massachusetts judge cannot order the FBI to do anything with its criminal records. However, Massachusetts law requires the Commonwealth to request the FBI to seal or expunge a sealed or expunged Massachusetts court record. Federal law then gives a person a way to correct the federal record to reflect the sealing or expungement and conceal or delete the federal entry. Massachusetts remedies themselves are covered on the firm’s pages on sealing and expunging a criminal record and the sealing and expungement standards.

First, the good news. A Massachusetts case that begins without an arrest does not create an FBI record until the defendant is arraigned. The federal identity history is built from the fingerprints taken during an arrest at booking, so when a case begins with a summons to a clerk-magistrate hearing rather than an arrest, no fingerprints are taken and no federal entry is created. If the clerk-magistrate declines to issue the complaint, no CORI entry is created, and nothing is sent to the FBI. That outcome, reflected in the firm’s case results, is stronger than any later attempted federal record correction, because no state or federal record exists to correct.

The FBI’s Copy of a Massachusetts Record

Most people who ask about federal records are asking about one record in particular: the identity history the FBI keeps on nearly everyone arrested in the United States. When Massachusetts police book a person, they take fingerprints and send them to the FBI, which opens or updates a federal identity history summary built from that arrest. A Massachusetts arrest, booking and its later court process and disposition then sit in that federal file.

The question clients ask is whether a Massachusetts judge who seals or expunges the state case can order the FBI to seal or expunge its copy. The answer is no. A Massachusetts court has jurisdiction over Massachusetts cases, Massachusetts probation, and Massachusetts police, and its order binds only them. It has no jurisdiction over the FBI in this context. The FBI keeps its identification records under the United States Code, 28 U.S.C. § 534, and answers to federal authority alone. No state judge can command a federal agency to alter a federal record.

Massachusetts law recognizes that limit and does what little a state can do. Under M.G.L. c. 276, § 100T, once a Massachusetts record is sealed or expunged the state must notify the FBI and the United States Department of Justice and request that they seal or expunge their copy. Section 100T reads “Upon sealing a record pursuant to section 100A or section 100B or upon receipt of an order of expungement pursuant to section 100F, section 100G, section 100H or section 100K the commissioner of the department shall notify the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Department of Justice of said sealing or expungement and shall request said Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Department of Justice seal or expunge the record.”

The statute uses the word request, because a request is all a state can do. The FBI has traditionally honored these requests for structural reasons written into federal regulations. Under the federal regulation that governs the Interstate Identification Index, the national system that links state and federal records, each agency that contributes criminal history information is responsible for keeping that information complete, accurate, and current, 28 C.F.R. § 20.37. Massachusetts is the contributing agency for a Massachusetts case, so when Massachusetts reports that the case is sealed or expunged, the FBI should restrict or remove the entry to abide by the regulation. The change comes from the FBI’s response to the state’s report but in accordance with a federal regulation. The response is not adherence to the state court order itself.

Because § 100T is a request and not a command, the result should be verified rather than assumed. A person can obtain their own FBI identity history by submitting fingerprints to the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division under 28 C.F.R. § 16.32, confirm that the sealed or expunged Massachusetts case is reported correctly, and, where the federal copy still shows a case that Massachusetts has cleared, ask to correct it under 28 C.F.R. § 16.34 to match the record of the agency that contributed the entry. That federal correction is the remedy when the federal copy lags or is inaccurate. This verification is the final step of a Massachusetts sealing or expungement. The mechanics of obtaining and correcting the federal record are set out in the next section, on the Identity History Summary Challenge.

This method does not solve one federal consequence. A Massachusetts conviction that triggers the federal firearms prohibition under 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(8) or (g)(9) remains even after the state record is sealed. The firearms prohibition is mandated by federal law and a background check run through the national instant criminal background check system still shows the underlying conviction whether or not the state has sealed the record. The firearms analysis is on the firm’s page on carrying or possessing a firearm. The general problem remains: sealing or expunging a Massachusetts case controls only what Massachusetts reports. For the federal record, it creates an opportunity to request sealing or expungement of the FBI record under § 100T, but it does not by itself undo the firearms-related consequence that federal law attaches to the conviction.

The Identity History Summary Challenge

The process for correcting an FBI entry regarding a sealed, expunged, or erroneous record is relatively simple. A sealed Massachusetts record continues to exist but is not available in state level background checks. An expunged Massachusetts record is destroyed. When a Massachusetts case has been sealed or expunged under M.G.L. c. 276, §§ 100A, 100C, 100F to 100K but the arrest still appears on an FBI background check, the mechanism for obtaining the correction is the Identity History Summary Challenge under 28 C.F.R. § 16.34.

FBI compliance with a Massachusetts expungement order is complicated, however. Again, a Massachusetts expungement order does not bind the FBI. A state court cannot command a federal agency’s record keeping decisions. The FBI maintains identification records under federal law. What obligates the FBI is its own regulation. When Massachusetts transmits an expungement to the FBI, the rule is explicit: upon receipt of an official communication directly from the agency that contributed the original information, the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services Division “will make any changes necessary in accordance with the information supplied by that agency,” 28 C.F.R. § 16.34. The FBI does not act on the applicant’s description of the case or on the state court order standing alone. It acts on the Massachusetts agency’s verification, and once that verification arrives the correction follows.

The process of challenging the FBI record has three parts, and it carries no fee:

1. Gather the proof the FBI requires: a certified copy of the Massachusetts expungement order from the court that granted it, any confirmation from the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services that the record is cleared at the state level, and, where available, the copy of the FBI’s own Identity History Summary that shows the entry to be removed.
2. Submit the challenge, either electronically through the FBI portal at edo.cjis.gov by entering the identifying information and uploading the order and supporting documents, which is the faster route, or by mail to the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services Division, Attention Criminal History Analysis Team 1, 1000 Custer Hollow Road, Clarksburg, West Virginia 26306, enclosing a letter that identifies the arrest to be removed together with the certified court documents.
3. Allow time for verification, as the FBI contacts the Massachusetts agency or court that submitted the arrest fingerprints, removes the entry from the Next Generation Identification records that produce the Identity History Summary only after Massachusetts confirms the expungement, and then sends written notice of the change. The stated average time is about 45 days, and electronic filing is generally faster than mail.

A person can use the same challenge to correct a less common problem, an arrest that still appears on the federal record with no disposition because the acquittal or dismissal was never transmitted to the FBI.

Expunging Federal Records of Federal Cases is Rare

Every criminal case generates records with the court system that heard the case. A Massachusetts case produces the court and probation records that make up CORI, held by Massachusetts agencies and governed by Massachusetts law. A federal case produces its own set: the docket of the United States District Court, the files of the United States Attorney and the arresting agency, the Bureau of Prisons records for anyone who served a federal sentence, and the FBI identity history built from fingerprints. The FBI record is the one that matters most, because it aggregates both systems: state bookings and federal cases appear side by side, and it is the record federal employers, immigration officials, licensing boards that fingerprint, and firearms dealers running the national instant check read. The two systems answer to different sovereigns, and a remedy granted by one government does not affect the other.

No General Federal Expungement Statute

Congress has never enacted a general expungement or sealing statute for federal criminal records. There is no federal counterpart to M.G.L. c. 276, § 100A: no waiting period after which a federal conviction can be sealed, no petition to a federal probation office, and no statute directing a federal court to seal a dismissal or an acquittal. A federal case that ends in outright victory still leaves the arrest, the docket, and the disposition on the federal record, permanently visible to every agency that reads it. Whatever statutory relief exists comes from a very narrow federal statute involving drug offenses only.

The First Circuit Rule: United States v. Coloian

The controlling case in Massachusetts is United States v. Coloian, 480 F.3d 47 (1st Cir. 2007). The defendant, an attorney, was indicted on federal bribery charges and acquitted of every count after a four day trial. Three years later he asked the district court to expunge the record on equitable grounds, citing the stigma of the charges and the damage to his law practice. The district court held that it had the power but declined to use it. The First Circuit went further: it vacated the order and directed that the motion be dismissed for want of jurisdiction, holding that a federal district court lacks ancillary jurisdiction even to consider expungement of a criminal record on purely equitable grounds. The court applied the Supreme Court’s limits on ancillary jurisdiction from Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America, 511 U.S. 375 (1994), and aligned the First Circuit with the Third, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits against the Second, Seventh, Tenth, and District of Columbia Circuits, which permit equitable expungement in rare cases. In Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, and Puerto Rico, the rule is that an acquitted defendant cannot even get a hearing.

What survives Coloian is narrow. Earlier First Circuit law described the equitable expungement power as one used mainly for records of unconstitutional convictions, Reyes v. Supervisor of the DEA, 834 F.2d 1093, 1098 (1st Cir. 1987), and Coloian addressed motions based purely on equity. A record tied to a conviction that was itself unlawful or invalid, or to proceedings a statute makes expungeable, stands on different ground. But hardship, stigma, lost employment, and the passage of time, the considerations that drive Massachusetts sealing under Commonwealth v. Pon, 469 Mass. 296 (2014), support nothing in federal court in this circuit.

The One Statutory Route: 18 U.S.C. § 3607 for Young Drug Offenders

The clearest statutory exception is the Federal First Offender Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3607. A person with no prior drug conviction who is found guilty of simple possession under 21 U.S.C. § 844 may be placed on probation for up to one year without entry of judgment, and the case can be dismissed on successful completion. The disposition resembles a Massachusetts continuance without a finding. Section 3607(c) then adds an expungement remedy for the youngest defendants: if the person was under 21 at the time of the offense, the court may order the arrest and all proceedings expunged from the official records, except a single nonpublic record kept by the Department of Justice to enforce the one-time limit. The statute restores the person to the status occupied before the arrest and provides that the person shall not be held guilty of perjury for denying the arrest ever happened. It is the only true federal expungement most defendants will ever encounter, and it applies to one offense, one time, for one age group.

Presidential Pardons

The Constitution places the pardon power for federal offenses in the President, and the Department of Justice processes applications through the Office of the Pardon Attorney. The regulations set a waiting period: no petition should be filed until at least 5 years after release from confinement or, where no prison sentence was imposed, at least 5 years after the conviction, 28 C.F.R. § 1.2. A pardon is forgiveness, not erasure. The conviction remains on the record with the pardon noted beside it, and the recipient must still disclose the conviction where asked, though a full pardon restores rights lost to the conviction and can lift certain federal disqualifications. For a person whose federal conviction blocks a license, a security clearance, or firearms eligibility, the pardon is slow and discretionary, and it is also the only remedy of its kind.

Federal Juvenile Records

Federal juvenile delinquency records receive stronger protection than adult records, though the mechanism is confidentiality rather than destruction. Under 18 U.S.C. § 5038, records of federal juvenile proceedings must be safeguarded from disclosure, may be released only to listed recipients such as courts, treatment agencies, and law enforcement, and may not be released at all in response to inquiries related to an application for employment, a license, bonding, or any civil right or privilege; the required response to such an inquiry is the same answer given for a person with no record. The statute also prohibits publicizing the juvenile’s name or picture unless the case is transferred for adult prosecution.

What This Means in Practice

Because federal records of federal cases cannot be expunged or sealed, they have to be fought at the front end. In a federal case that means charging and disposition strategy: a declination, a pretrial diversion agreement, or a § 3607 disposition for an eligible drug possession defendant is worth far more than any motion filed years later, which is unlikely to prevail under Coloian.

Federal record keeping and consequences must also be part of every Massachusetts case with federal exposure. A domestic violence case creates records in various non-public databases that sealing does not address. There are also firearms consequences under 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(8) and (g)(9) that are federal and permanent absent a pardon. The state-side analysis is on the firm’s firearms charges page. A non-citizen should assume immigration officials will read the federal record whether sealed or not. A vacated or expired restraining order is still part of the Massachusetts domestic violence registry unless removed through the narrow route covered on the firm’s page on expunging a 209A or 258E order. No federal record is mandated by the state-level domestic violence database. The one uniformly available step, for every client, is verification and correction: order the FBI record, read it, and correct it.

Common Questions About Federal Records and the FBI

Who Attorney Serpa Represents

Serpa Law Office represents people across Greater Boston whose records stand in the way of work, licensing, housing, or immigration status: clients sealing Massachusetts cases who need the federal file to match, clients with outdated federal arrests that show no disposition, licensed professionals and students whose background checks will include an FBI record, and other defendants weighing dispositions with the record consequences in view. Attorney Serpa has defended criminal cases for 30 years and also handles the record work as a second part of the defense. Call 617.936.0201 for a free, confidential consultation.

Courts Where These Issues Arise

Massachusetts sealing and expungement petitions are heard in the district and superior courts of Suffolk, Norfolk, Middlesex, Essex, and Plymouth counties and through the Office of the Commissioner of Probation. Federal cases within Massachusetts run through the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston, Worcester, and Springfield, and the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Related Serpa Law Office resources

The federal sections of the firm’s pages on sealing and expunging a criminal record and the sealing and expungement standards cover how the state and federal layers interact, the page on Massachusetts criminal records explains what employers see at each access level, and the post on the Coloian decision tells the story behind the First Circuit rule.